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“So you’re the Grinch,” Max says matter-of-factly as she shoves a handful of fries into her mouth.
“I’m the what? I am not the Grinch. ” Billy scoffs, food half-chewed in his cheek. He takes a sip of his root beer float.
“You’re literally the Grinch, dude. And Steve is Cindy Lou Who. And you’re stealing Christmas, you Scrooge.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder and settles back against the booth.
“Why? Because I won’t let him decorate the apartment in November?” He takes another bite of his burger. He had just finished telling her about how he walked in yesterday to Bing Crosby, boxes of decorations, and Steve balancing on a kitchen chair with the tree topper in hand. He’s not mentally prepared for Christmas yet. It was Thanksgiving three days ago.
“Uh, yeah? We all know we have bad Christmas memories. Who doesn’t? You need to push through and embrace the Christmas spirit. For Steve.” Max crosses her arms across her chest.
Billy mirrors her as he leans back. “I just never experienced the Christmas spirit, Maxine. What I experienced was like a fucking nightmare for 18 years. There were no days off, not even on Christmas. Hell, especially on Christmas.”
Max fixes him with a look that says ‘no kidding’. “No shit,” She says. “But that doesn’t mean Neil can make the rest of your life a nightmare. He doesn’t live in your apartment, does he? Are you going to let him make you miserable until you die?”
Damn , when she puts it like that . “I guess not. When did you become so smart?” Billy wipes his hands and mouth and crumples his napkin into a ball.
“Unfortunately, it’s just something I was born with. I think you’re shit outta luck at this point,” she says with a Cheshire cat grin. Billy swipes at her half-heartedly across the table, drawing out a loud cackle from his sister. It makes him feel a lot better about everything.
______________
After dropping Max off, Billy decides to run a few errands in town. Going into Melvald’s is always something that makes him anxious. Everyone in town knows that he was in Starcourt and saved some lives. They also know that he was in the hospital for the entire summer and had to go to rehab for most of the fall. Only some of them know he’s living across town in an apartment with Steve Harrington.
A trip to Melvald’s is like a test of privacy and how much people will pry into his life. But because Hawkins is the small town to end all other small towns, there is no other place to buy toilet paper, housewares, and 2% milk in one place.
Stepping into Melvald’s this afternoon, it’s blissfully quiet. Joyce Byers is manning the register, and only a few other people are milling around the aisles. Billy makes a beeline for the paper towels and toilet paper. He holds the toilet paper up to his face, trying to read the number of plies. Billy will be damned if he buys one ply like he did by accident last time.
With both packages under his arm, he heads back around the store to the checkout when he sees something. Something that might make his Grinchy heart grow three sizes.
On the wall is an arrangement of assorted Christmas ornaments. They’re all on clearance, and Billy can understand why. They’re pretty… ugly. Outdated, defective, or just plain hideous, these things must’ve been collecting dust for a while now. Still, Steve loves broken and ugly things. Hell, he lets Billy live with him, doesn’t he?
He knows that Steve was disappointed when Billy came home yesterday and wasn’t jumping for joy over the prospect of Christmas coming early. For all the good that Steve does, Billy supposes he should make it up to him.
He sees an ornament of Rudolph like how he is in that creepy claymation movie on TV every year. He’s missing a hoof and half of an antler, but he still looks pretty good. So Billy holds onto it as he goes up to pay.
“Did you find everything alright?” Joyce asks him while scanning the paper towels.
“Yeah,” Billy replies absently.
Joyce picks up the ornament and quirks her eyebrow at him. She has it between her chipped thumb and pointer fingers like she’s double-checking he meant to put this on the belt. He nods.
“I didn’t realize you were into the Christmas stuff so soon?” Joyce asks as she’s bagging his items. “$10.50.”
Billy hands her $11. “I’m not. It’s for Ste- a friend.” He clears his throat. He’s hoping that he caught it quickly enough. Red creeps up his neck, and his ears burn.
Joyce, a saint among women, pretends she didn’t hear the slip-up or notice Billy’s growing blush. “Well, I think your friend will love it.” She hands him the bags and sends him off with a smile.
When he gets home, he takes the toilet paper and paper towels and leaves them on the table as he holds onto the Rudolph ornament. Steve won’t be home for a while, so he places the ornament on the tree himself. Rudolph sits on a middle branch on the side closest to the kitchen, a spot that Steve won’t immediately notice when he walks through the door. Billy sits back on the couch with the remote and relaxes.
______________
Nothing happens until the next morning as Billy puts his uniform on for the day. He has his jumpsuit on up to his waist as he brushes his teeth when he hears, “Hey Bill, where’d this ornament come from?”
Billy sticks his head out of the bathroom to see Steve holding Rudolph in his hands. He gives Billy a curious look; his eyebrows are all scrunched together in the cutest way.
Blood rushes to Billy’s heart and his head. He just knows his ears are burning. He moves the toothbrush to the inside of his cheek to say, “I picked it up from Melvald’s yesterday.”
“Oh?” Steve holds Rudolph with all his broken bits so gently, like he’s something precious and not a dusty thing forgotten to time.
“Yeah, I thought you’d like it.” Billy reasons and starts to finish brushing his teeth.
In the bathroom, he doesn’t see Steve caress the fragile ornament before putting it back on the tree. Billy doesn’t hear him whisper under his breath, “ He got it for me.”
Steve hands Billy his bagged lunch as he grabs his keys. “Thank you… for the ornament, Billy.”
“No problem, sweetheart. I’ll see you later,” Billy replies, sends him a wink, and he’s out the door.
Steve stares at the ornament all morning.
______________
“He got you an ornament.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you for an hour, Robin.”
“Ebenezer bought you an ornament. For Christmas.”
Steve sighs in exasperation. Loudly.
Robin mocks his sigh in retaliation. Louder.
“This is serious, Rob!”
“Is it?” Robin snarks over the line.
“Robin. This is a guy who tolerates Christmas at best. And he bought me a Rudolph ornament just cause, ” Steve repeats, probably for the hundredth time. How is she not understanding that this is a big deal?
“Steve. Maybe he just turned a corner and is now a Christmas lover? Or maybe…” Robin trails off, knowing full well this is the only inch she’s given him this whole phone call.
“Maybe what? ” Steve practically yells into the receiver.
“Hold your horses, Steve-o. But maybe, just maybe, he did it to make you happy? Because he likes seeing you smile?”
Steve sits with that for a minute with the phone still to his ear. He realizes that Robin has asked him something. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Dingus, I said that he likes other things about you too. Or maybe… everything.” There’s the seriousness that Steve was begging for earlier.
“Robin, there’s just no way. This is Billy we’re talking about here. Rough and tough car mechanic Billy. Hooked-up-with-every-girl-in-town Billy.”
“I-bought-you-a-Christmas-ornament-because-I-thought-of-you Billy.”
Steve doesn’t know what to say to that.
“Did you O.D. over there, Steve?”
Steve hears keys jingle in the lock as boots shuffle against the doormat.
“Billy just got home. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” Steve puts the phone on the hook and steps out of his bedroom.
The first thing he sees is Billy standing by the tree in his dirty jumpsuit and his socks. He has his hair half up in a bun. The lights of the tree make it a halo. He turns when he hears Steve enter the hallway. He looks like he’s been caught, which is when Steve sees the second thing.
Billy is in the middle of putting an ornament on the tree. This one is a plush Kermit the frog. He’s missing an eye button.
“Where’d you get that?” Steve asks carefully. He doesn’t want to scare him off.
“Saw him in the window at Melvald’s today during my smoke break. Thought you’d like him.” Billy smiles at Steve shyly. Steve notices the blush sliding up his neck. He walks up to where Billy stands next to the tree, socked feet adjacent to each other. He’s impossibly close.
Steve hears Billy’s breath catch as he reaches out for the Kermit, still resting in Billy’s rough fingers. Hands brush as Steve grabs hold of the frog.
“He’s sweet,” Steve says as he admires the soft felt of the ornament and his sewn-on face. Fingers hover over the missing eye. Steve turns his head then and sees Billy watching him. Staring at him. “Thank you.”
Steve grabs the ornament string and hangs it to the right of Rudolph. He turns back to Billy and kisses him on the cheek so quickly that neither of them has time to be scared. As he quietly walks back to his room, Steve has a ghost of a smile.
Billy touches his cheek in the glow of the lights.
______________
Billy can't stop thinking about it. Steve kissed him on the cheek. He kissed him because of an ornament. Billy suddenly wants to buy out Melvalds of all of its Christmas decor.
It’s been three days, and it won’t leave his brain. Whenever he thinks about it, he starts sweating. He thinks it might be time to consult the big guns.
“I need your help with something,” He begins. He’s sitting at the diner again.
“Oh man, what did you get yourself into now?” Max takes a sip of her strawberry shake. El sits next to her, picking at her fries.
“Well, first of all, it’s kinda your fault, Maxine ,” Billy says. “You told me to embrace the Christmas spirit for Steve.”
“Yeah? So what?” She asks with a mouthful of fries.
“Yeah! So what!” El parrots, mouth equally stuffed with fries.
Billy stares at El for a minute before shaking his head and turning back to Max.
“‘So what’ is that I bought him an ornament because I saw it at Melvalds, and he liked it. Then, I bought him another, which I thought he would like, and-“ Billy glances around the restaurant. It’s 3pm on a Friday, so it’s not packed, but this isn’t something you can just say freely. Max urges him on with her eyes. “And he kissed me. On the cheek.”
Max whistles lowly, “Ho-ly shit.”
El can’t whistle despite her best effort but says anyways, “Ho-ly shit.”
“You’re a bad influence on her,” Billy points out to Max.
“Don’t try to change the subject. Anyways, that's pretty ballsy for Steve. I gotta say I was not expecting this. At least, not this soon, ” Max grabs the scrunchie from around her wrist and pulls her hair back into a ponytail. “But I have to ask, are you happy about this development?”
Billy busies himself with taking a massive bite of his sandwich and shoving a few fries in there for good measure. He gestures to his overstuffed mouth.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Max concludes. “A kiss on the cheek… very interesting.”
“Super interesting,” El concurs.
“But now, I don’t know what to do! Do I buy him another ornament or do I go back to being a scrooge?” Billy pulls his hands through his hair anxiously.
“Well, I guess that depends on what you want,” Max says wisely. “Do you want him to kiss you again or do you just want to forget about it?” She takes a loud sip from her milkshake.
Billy sits with that question the rest of the night. He was quiet the rest of the meal, in the car ride to drop off the girls, and on the way home. What does he want?
______________
Steve is working late, closing the Family Video at 10pm. As he walks to the car, he notices that the town has finally put up the Christmas lights. They wrap around lamp posts and stop signs, and gutters of buildings. It makes Hawkins feel magical. In a good way, for once.
He walks past Melvalds on his way to his car and notices the display in the window. It’s cute but a little sparse. Only one string of lights adorns the setup, and the miniature tree only contains a few ornaments. Now that Steve is really looking at it, it looks picked clean.
In the car, he listens to his Christmas music and notices flurries have begun to fall. Only a few stick to his windows.
When he gets home, he rushes up the complex stairs, trying to escape the cold. He grabs the mail from the mailbox and fumbles for his keys to unlock the door. As he turns the knob, he promptly drops every piece of mail onto the floor. So it takes him a minute to notice.
But then he does. Notice, that is.
Bing Crosby is playing. He lifts his head from where it’s staring at the papers on the floor. He sees lights strung around the room, corner to corner. They paint the room in a warm yellow light. Steve turns his head and sees Billy. He’s adding tinsel to a tree that is covered in ornaments. Ornaments that weren’t there when Steve left for work earlier. Ornaments that were probably on display at Melvalds.
Billy must realize the door is open because he finally turns and catches Steve’s gaze. Steve can’t see much though because his eyes are a bit glassy with tears.
“Hey,” Billy says softly. Like he’s relieved to see Steve standing in the doorway. He smiles so gently and genuinely at Steve.
“Hi,” Steve replies just as softly. He leans backward to snick the front door shut behind him. The room begins to fill with warmth again.
Steve begins to make his way around the couch and to the tree. To Billy. The whole way, admiring the decorations that were pulled out of boxes deep in the attic or came straight from the shelves at the store. Steve’s eyes are impossibly soft as they settle on Billy. Billy in his flannel pajama pants and a worn band t-shirt. The winding rivers of scars disappear beneath the sleeves. Billy with his hair still a little damp from a shower.
“Where’d all this come from?” Steve finally whispers. He stands so close to Billy that he can hear him swallow anxiously. He can feel his hand shaking by his side. He can feel the warmth radiating from him.
Billy opens his mouth, but no words come out. He coughs and clears his throat to try again. The blush rises to his cheeks.
“I-uh, I thought you’d love it,” Billy says quietly. A smile begins to take shape. “You love Christmas.”
“I do love it,” Steve replies. He turns now to look at the ornaments. Most of them are in the same state as Rudolph and Kermit, a little on the shabby side but lovely nonetheless. No two are the same. There’s a curled paper snowflake, a felt Santa Claus, a glass Raggedy Ann, a teddy bear missing an arm, and so many more. Steve’s touch lingers on all of them. There’s one that doesn’t quite fit though.
Steve’s hand is reaching for it before he asks what it is. It’s porcelain and smooth and- he looks at Billy. His eyebrows are scrunched together, and his heart has begun to ache.
“What’s this one?” Steve asks tentatively, nervously. In his hand in a porcelain heart. Customized with black handwriting.
B + S
1986
“That one’s a special one,” Billy concedes. Steve finally looks him in the eyes.
“What does it mean?” Steve asks, never breaking contact, eyes wet with tears.
“Our first Christmas with each other,” Billy answers earnestly. He wrings his hands together nervously. Steve’s heart bursts like a balloon.
Steve chokes out a wet laugh. His smile brightens the room even more somehow. In response, Billy’s face begins to split into his own smile.
“I know this was hard for you to do. I know you don’t love Christmas,” Steve says as he puts his hands on Billy’s forearms and then takes hold of his hands.
“I may not love Christmas,” Billy confesses, and time stands still. “But I do love you.” He says it like a prayer. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas plays in the background. Snow whips outside the window behind the tree. Billy’s face is suddenly so open and vulnerable. As the seconds pass, Billy becomes more nervous.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to spring that on you,” Billy apologetically backpedals and goes to take a step away from Steve.
Steve puts his hands on Billy’s shoulders to hold him still.
“Just-“ Steve starts. He shifts his hands, so they rest on the back of Billy’s neck. “Just stay.”
“Okay,” Billy whispers.
Steve begins thinking about the Rudolph ornament and the Kermit ornament, and Billy going out of his way to buy them and the rest of these decorations. He thinks about Billy and him moving in together in September. He thinks about Billy cooking breakfast in his pajamas and his socks with bedhead. He thinks about Billy taking Max out for lunch and how happy he seems afterward.
Steve can't think any more or he’ll explode.
“Billy,” Steve starts. But then the words won’t come out of him. So he does the next best thing.
Steve curls his hands around Billy’s neck and pulls him close. Softly, he leans and presses his lips to Billy’s cheek and then to the corner of his mouth. Billy stands there in awe.
Steve’s lips on his skin begin to shake Billy out of his stupor. He looks at Steve, laden with emotion. His eyes are wide and damp.
It’s Billy’s turn to hold Steve’s cheeks in his rough hands. He softly rubs his thumbs back and forth. Billy finally leans forward and kisses Steve in earnest. Gentle but heavy with feeling. Billy’s heart aches as he kisses Steve. Steve’s heart has long since burst.
______________
“So you’re still like the Grinch,” Max concludes after Billy fills her in on everything that’s occurred over the past week.
“What do you mean? I spent so much money embracing the Christmas spirit for Steve that I won’t be able to take you out again for a month !”
“No, idiot, I mean, you’re like the Grinch at the end of the movie! You know, when his heart grows three sizes?” Max says exasperatedly, rolling her eyes.
“Oh,” Billy says. “Well, I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Max states. “ And I think you should be thanking me, celebrating me even.”
“Where’d you come up with that bright idea?” Billy asks incredulously.
“Hello? I’m the one who told you to embrace the Christmas spirit and who told you to go for what you wanted. Which you did.” She sits back against the booth and sips her water.
“Okay, you’re right,” Billy begins, and a satisfied smile creeps onto Max’s face. “But-“
“What do you mean ‘but’?” Max looks offended that he even insinuates that there’s another side to this.
“If you’d be so kind as to let me finish, I was going to say: But, that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you bribe me into giving you things now. Just because Steve and I are together doesn’t mean it was all because of you,” Billy explains. Max scoffs.
“Okay, fine, ” Max concedes. “But can I get whatever I want today ?” She plasters on her sweetest smile and puppy dog eyes. She clasps her hands under her chin.
Billy rolls his eyes and hides his smile, “Yeah, fine, shitbird.”
Max claps her hands together and grins.